Titans West
by Lastk13
Summary: Set in the New 52 after the Teen Titan's break up, Bart Allen finds himself on the west coast and finds a mysterious, drowsy blonde girl with weapons in the midst of an alien invasion. Also during this encounter, he finds new friends among twin alien fugitives, a flying insect girl, and a lost Atlantean warrior. Reviews Welcome.
1. Go West Young Titan: Part 1

Bart Allen is driving on a rainy Seattle evening amidst the lights of many businesses and coffee shops. "Bart Allen driving" is the last thing anyone who knows him would expect him to do, but after the Teen Titans disbanded, he needed time to think and get away. Being so in touch with the speed force, he could have done all of those things in a manner of seconds, but after macroseconds of thinking, he decided on giving up the tight spandex and speeding through life, to an extent. He has spent all of his life moving from thought to thought, acting to action and he has decided to do some soul searching and itry to stretch his patience and be less impulsive.

He began to regret this idea as he began driving for a full 2 minutes in New York, but somehow he made his trek cross country. His constant urges to do something were quelled by him stopping anywhere where there seemed to be a party going on and then crashing it shamelessly. Weddings, proms, and Bat Mitzvahs, had Bart making an excessive amount of stops across the country. It's true what they say "You can take the kid out of the speed force, but you can't take the speed force out of the kid." Bart ended up in one situation where he gave a best man's speech in a dirty yellow jump suit and later on ended up proposing to the groom's mother with the father still in the room. That was one of the many moments he broke his rule of no powers. Bart's life has been fun, but pretty aimless. He misses being a part of something and doing some good in the world. Now he just messes around doing nothing.

As he drives downtown, and the rain creates a patter on the roof of the used, rusted Dodge he got a deal on, he nearly drifts off to the half a second of sleep, that he'd need for the night. With the roads being as slick as they are he needs to focus, which was hard enough when he's ADHD to the tenth power. In the course of the rhythm of rain, he hears a gunshot followed by a scream and a thud. He is distracted by this and sees a girl running out from a dark alley where the noises took place. He looks at every detail, piecing together that she is related to what happened. It was a detective trick he learned from Red Robin. The girl had straight blonde hair and her makeup was running in the rain. She was barely dressed in a yellow top and a very short red skirt. The strangest piece of her wardrobe was her bleeding arm and the bow and quiver she was carrying.

Bart stopped the car and went to her aid immediately. She stumbled and almost fell, but Bart managed to catch her in time by stretching his speeding rules. Bart looks at her arm and assumes it was a gunshot wound.

"Hey! Hey! Are you all right?!" Bart asks quickly.

The girl mutters "I-I can ma-make—" as she says this she fall over unconscious.

Bart promptly begins to panic for a second and then he takes off his hoodie and puts it over her and tries to rip off a part of his jacket to wrap the wound, like he had seen in movies. He can't quite rip it, so he abandons it and decides to fully break his rule and run her to the hospital. He picks her up and he begins his stride. With each step he moves further and further into the speed force. The rain drops descend like a parachute until it reaches a near halt and Bart lunges into a steady jog, which to anyone looking on to the scene, would look as though a bolt of lightning is coursing through the Seattle city streets. Bart and the girl are in a tunnel of red energy, where time and physics barely apply. Bart is worried about her bleeding out, but although she is moving with Bart in the speed force, her internal organs are still moving through time at a normal pace.

During the jog, the girl stirs and manages to get out "Nuh hsptl"

"But you got shot!" Bart says rounding the corner and breaking out of the force into a stop.

"I just got grazed." the girl says drearily and getting out of Bart's arms, "I just shot my dad with an arrow and I'm really tired."

"What!" Exclaims Bart, attempting to piece together what the girl just said.

"Name's Mia, B.T.W." She says as she promptly passes out and hits the ground.

Mia wakes with her face smushed on a wooden table and her own drool, the smell of coffee beans and the sound of desperate hipsters working on screenplays. Starbucks. She lifted her head and saw her dashing, skinny hero in a yellow sweater and looked down to see her hands tied together by a rag and her wound wrapped in tissues and yellow electrical tape.

"Wakey, wakey." said Mr. Yellow Skinny-Sweater. "You said you were tired and we are in Seattle, so I didn't have to even turn around before I found a solution."

"Did you tie me up?" asked Mia.

"Yeah, about that… I totally was all about saving you and stuff, but then you slipped in the little fact that you kinda killed a guy. So, I'm sorry if I don't really have a lot of trust right now. But I still got us coffee so hero points for me. "

Mia realizes she was not in her right mind when she was talking. Why would she tell a stranger about her life? Was it pride? Was it excitement? She just has to get away from this situation and somehow get out of this situation and this kid with a serious hero complex.

"First: It's a long story and second…" Mia undoes her binding easily and frees herself without breaking eye contact with her hero/captor. "You're gonna have to try harder to tie me up. Unfortunately in my line- ex line of work, it's a skill I had to get used to."

"Uh… I have connections with the Teen Titans and I can totally take you down if you try anything." Bart, says while being very confused.

"Titans are in New York." Mia says as she sips her coffee. "Look, I have been through my own hell all my life and I finally got free tonight. Let's just go our separate ways and I'll pay you back for the coffee one day."

"If you were in such a bad situation, I could help you out. I wasn't kidding when I said I have connections with the Titans."

"Weren't you the _Flash kid_?"

"_Kid Flash_. I'm retired now but I can still help."

"Wait. You're retired, but you obviously still use your powers, when you ran me here and you dress in the same colors of your costume with that sweater and this hoodie? Really keeping a low profile, huh?"

"Keep it down!" he whisper-screams, "Just call me for now. Let me help you out, please."

"Do you reveal your identity to all the pretty blondes?" Mia teases.

"Jeez! I give up on you. Let the police get you." Bart says as he gets up. "Keep the jacket.''

"Fine! It's the most any of you heroes ever did for me while I was on the street!" Mia yells at Bart, losing her cool, while slamming her fist on the table.

As she does this, the lights in the shop flicker on and off until all of the lights in the eyed view were black. The lightning begins to flash violently in sky replacing the neon lights. The glass shatters down the street as the night sky shines down heavy spot lights, as if the stars were going to war. The lights began to spread of into formation and thy take to the streets to reveal them to be humanoids piloting these fantastic shrimp like crafts that speed down the streets attacking the streets with otherworldly beams, causing ruble to fall from various buildings, injuring people, and flashing bright lights into every corner of the streets.

"I gotta stop these guys! Kid's out of retirement!" Bart begins to take off but Mia takes advantage of his wind up and lunges for his arm and stops him.

"You have to save these people first!" Mia protests to Bart.

"I'll do that by chasing these bad guys!"

"They need help first!"

"I really don't have time to argue!"

"Fine, I'll help these people. Just—" as Mia takes a breath Bart flinches and ends up in full Kid Flash garb and drops her bow and arrow on the ground by her feet and speeds off after one of the crafts. Mia grabs her bow and arrow for protection as she runs into the streets and into the unknown.


	2. Go West 2: Enter the Atlantean

p class="MsoNormal"this, magnificent act goes unnoticed in the dark city. The figure abandons his impossible chariot to walk along the pier. His feet are bare, and he walks heavily and with a determined purpose. He looks up with chilling sea blue eyes towards the sky, filled with spotlights. The ocean dweller makes it to the streets, where he observes the destruction being caused by the otherworldly racers and the carnage they are leaving in their wake. He spots the source of the attack in the form of the biggest light in the sky where the racers spiral down from. Just then, he spots a racer coming towards him. The dark figure lunges towards the craft and immediately reaches to increase its altitude to avoid a further collision, and proceeds to overwhelm the original driver who evades the figures powerful attacks. In the heat of the scuffle, that the driver begins to transform into an otherworldly serpent and begins to constrict around the figure's arms and neck. The serpent bares its razor teeth at the figure, but the figure retaliates quickly with a surprising feat. The figure begins to illuminate the night with a blue light, originating from mystical tattoos that cover his arms. The energy that they produce is glows bright as if a strange fluid leaves his arm, drenches the serpent and like methane and fire, electricity ignites from the creature. The creature reverts to its original form and writhes in pain and falls towards the Earth below. Unfortunately, the fight damages the racer that the figure was on, but fortunately two suspicious comrades of the serpent-man pull alongside the heroic figure. The figure manages to push his weight on the side of the craft and, while lunging to the racer on the left, pushes the original craft into the one on the right and the two go spiraling down. The owner of the surviving craft looks on in horror as his friends fall. He turns around to see a grin in the darkness and a fist to his face./p 


	3. Go West 3: The Bee and the Boy

Earlier. Karen Beecher is finally happy to be independent and successful. School is almost over, she has an unbelievable internship at S.T.A.R. Labs, she had worked so hard to get to this point and she's doing it. She's in Seattle to celebrate with her best friend Mal Duncan. He has really helped her to get where she is by staying up on all of the late nights of studying and working on applications and preparing her for interviews. Karen's been in S.T.A.R. San Francisco for her first week and now she's coming back to get everything together and to enjoy a night on the town with Mal to tell him about everything. There also was another reason she was there. Her supervisor at S.T.A.R., Sharron Freeman told her that a team had been working on a prototype technology to deter any threats. Apparently she is picking up a secret drop off at the Space Needle. Why is an intern picking up a secret prototype from a super-secret Space Needle lab? S.T.A.R. Labs, while being the forefront of scientific advancement, is the sketchiest summer job anyone could have. Karen worked through the streets and made it to the land mark. Lying near a trash can, she saw a messenger bag with a blue star on it. Karen for a second thought it was two cute of a bag to be touched by science. Then, as she walked towards the bag, her phone vibrated more and more and the star on the bag started to glow. Of course S.T.A.R. Labs somehow made that happen. She picks up the bag and starts to walk back out onto the street and nearly gets knocked off the street by a biker. The biker stops too quickly and falls off and Karen recognizes that it's Mal.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry!" Mal yells from the ground as he fumbles with his bag. Karen helps him stand up and he straightens himself out. He stands wearing a blue hoodie that he always wears. He stands taller than Karen, not because he is particularly tall, but Karen is particularly short.

"Mal, are you ok?" Karen says half laughing, half concerned.

"Hey Karen! I'm good, how about—" Mal processes what just happened. "Oh! You mean that! I get it. I'm fine. It takes more than that to take me down."

Mal was worried he had skinned his knee.

"Well, I was just on my way to meet you for dinner. We could walk there if you—I dunno?"

"We could definitely walk there together. We can catch up."

Mal started walking with his bike and Karen. He had not noticed it was raining but in the glow of the neon on the streets, he realized that he must be a gentleman and reaches for his umbrella, but he turns around and Karen already has a yellow and black umbrella protecting her against the rain and the harsh glow of blue neon. Karen could always handle her problems, if something was wrong, she'd fix it. Mal would just be in the same room.

"So tell me about it. How is San Fran? How is S.T.A.R.? Have you opened any portals to other dimensions?" Mal asks as they round a corner.

"No portals yet. Not much of anything yet. They really just want me to sort stuff, and be a general assistant, but they're giving me more and more responsibility as I go." Karen starts looking down at her feet. "The thing I really like the most though, is the freedom. I mean, I get to just walk around San Francisco and live and breathe. I get to meet new people and explore and just wander."

"That sounds great." Mal said reluctantly. "Seattle is still a big place. There's tons of stuff here. I'm not trying to change your mind or anything. It's just a thing I noticed."

"I know Seattle's great, but it's harder to do different things. I've known the same people for such a long time that it's hard to do something new. In San Francisco, there's a clean slate."

"I know. It just seems so big."

"You know we live in a generation where people can fly and we can get invaded from parallel universes right? You're going to have to believe you can get bigger than Seattle."

Karen starts to check the time on her phone, but when she presses the start button, the light on her screen fades slowly to black, as the pure light floats away into the air. Karen looks to follow the light and sees all other lights following hers into the air. Headlights, streetlamps and neon signs all flow into the air, leaving the ground shrouded in darkness until they all meet at the tip of the space needle and circle and then at the center of the sky, there is an explosion of light with the lights being dispersed through the sky with crafts with beaming lights filling the sky and taking to the streets with great speeds.

"What's happening?!" Mal says stunned.

"I don't know but, I don't think we're safe." Karen says as she grabs Mals arm and grips her S.T.A.R. labs bag. Mal's bike drops to the ground as the two begin to run away. They make it to an alley way and they begin to maneuver through the buildings. They can barely move through the alley because of the darkness, only illuminated by the occasionally passing crafts.

"What are these things?!" Mal asks while they creep through the alley ways.

"I don't know. I think it's an alien invasion." Karen replies with her voice shaking and faltering from anxiety.

"Oh god!"

"I-I always thought this would happen, but it's actually happening." Karen sits down on a wall to catch her breath. "I don't know what to do. I have never thought about what to actually do."

Mal kneels down next to her and puts his hand on her back and tries to calm her.

"Um maybe we won't have to do anything. Its like what you said, there are powerful people who can help. Maybe we can just sit here and wait it all out." Mal takes her hand and joins her in sitting on the damp concrete. He tries to ease her tension by holding gripping her hand and breathing deeply with her. As they breath in the air, they feel the space, they drown out the sounds of the passing crafts and screams and shouts in the streets. They breathe in the smell of the wet Earth and the city smoke and eventually they are calm. They are calmed together.

But just then, their alleyway of peace has an intruder in the form of a cat with bright glowing purple eyes. The cat shrieks as is runs through the alley and pierces the tranquil air. The duo are instantly startled by the cat but have some comfort in that it's only an animal. But once they have some sense of comfort, but just then a bright light shines down the alleyway and hits the two. The craft stares down the alley way as the two stare back. Then the craft slowly moves down and they reply by slowly standing up. The two parties stay in a standoff for moments that feel like hours. The humming of the craft scores their confrontation. Mal and Karen hear the driver of the craft speak, but what he says is inaudible. Whatever the driver said, there was a digital reply, as if he was communicating with his craft. After the craft ends its part of the conversation, the bright white light turns into a menacing shade of red, and the light becomes more focused.

"Run!" Mal shouts as he and Karen take off.

They begin by rounding a corner and Mal just missing a blast from the craft. He was grazed and the pain is incredible. But he manages through it. It is life or death and his adrenaline gives him the power to ignore the scathing in his leg. They cross the street with the craft following close behind. They run through an outdoor café with overturned tables and singed chairs and they work their way behind the building, hoping to slow their pursuers. They run and run down an alley, with a fire escape on either side, but a dead end in front of them. The ladder of the fire escapes are up, so there is nowhere to go and as their pursuing craft creeps down the alleyway, the light drowning the alleyway in a blood red light..

With every millisecond, thoughts flood the pairs' heads. So many words not said. So many lives not lived. So many loves noy loved. Such young lives ended so quickly. Karen, with so much to offer to the world, with her brilliant ambition and Mal, a young man who has only known so little. Both to be gone in a flash of light.

"Karen?" Mal said in one last instance of desperation.

_Fwip!_

_Thack!_

Two sounds and the tension was broken.

The two looked at the craft without a master and then they looked up at the fire escape.

Perched on the fire escape was a girl, hidden in shadow wearing a red hoodie, holding a bow in her hand and a weak smile hidden in the darkness.

"So a 'Rescue Macchiato'?" the archer said, as she kicked the ladder to meet the two. "Would that be tall, grande or venti?"


End file.
